The Age Of Reason by Thomas Paine - 9780806505497 - Compare Prices on New & Used Textbooks, Cheap Textbooks

Paine's years of study and reflection on the role of religion in society culminated with this, his final work. An attack on revealed religion from the deist point of view — embodied by Paine's credo, "I believe in one God, and no more" — its critical and objective examination of Old and New Testaments cites numerous contradictions.

		The Age Of Reason by Thomas Paine ISBN-10: 9780806505497 ISBN-10: 0-8065-0549-4 ISBN-13: 9780806505497 ISBN-13: 978-0-8065-0549-7 Paperback 2000-12-01 Citadel Find Lowest Price
Editorials

Product Description Paine's years of study and reflection on the role of religion in society culminated with this, his final work. An attack on revealed religion from the deist point of view — embodied by Paine's credo, "I believe in one God, and no more" — its critical and objective examination of Old and New Testaments cites numerous contradictions.
Reviews

Good argument against Revelation Thomas Paine makes as powerful and argument as one might hope to make against the idea that the Bible - both the Old Testament and the New Testament - can possibly be direct revelations from God. His logic is very sound that revelation only occurs first to one person, and after that to believe in revelation is to put a great deal of trust in the person to whom revelation was supposedly delivered. He also makes fine textual criticism of many parts of the Bible. While some of his analysis and criticism is not well-founded, the whole of his argument against revelation seems forceful. (five stars on that) Where I dissent with Paine is his overall bitter diatribe against the Christian religion itself (two stars on that). There is much yet good in the Christian message, and I wonder if Paine did not give enough credit to the Quaker belief system, which was undoubtedly formative for his father and for himself. Paine does not describe much about Deism as an alternative, save that it is faith in knowledge of God through Creation. One should read this book for its good (and not so good) arguments - but don't acquire the Nuvision Press copy. It is chalked full of embarrassingly bad typos that should have been fixed before publication.
Life Changing I read this book about 20 years ago, and it got me thinking more and more about religion. I can't say that I was ever a "religious person", just that I needed to define what it is and how it fit in my life. This book had me questioning the bible, and that led to me questioning religion as a whole. I know this was not the intent of Mr. Paine, but I am beholding to him because his words began to open my eyes to the truth. I am proud to be an atheist.
Free-Thought This is the exact reason why I must say that I'm proud to be an american, this literary classic totally de-bunks what is "expressed" in what we call the 'holy' bible. Thomas Paine had the courage to write this essay at A time when he most likely would've been imprisoned or executed for heresy. Thomas Paine, the man responsible for entitling this great country of ours the "United States Of America", he is A great american hero.
A review of the Bible Thomas Paine was probably one of the most brilliant people to ever walk the face of the earth, he was extremely logical with a very scientific and mathmatical mind. His take on the Bible was done with care and due dilligence. Worth the read if you have an open mind and not afraid of facts.
Paine defended God's reputation Given the vitriol with which Christians have denounced Thomas Paine for more than 200 years, one may be under the impression, as I was, that he was an atheist. He was generally denounced as such, and Theodore Roosevelt's reference to him as a "filthy little atheist" was not atypical. But upon actually reading this famous tome of his, I discovered he was in fact a devout man of God. It was only Christianity and other organized religions he had a problem with, and he explains why. Paine was a creationist who believed nature is God's primary revelation of himself to humankind. In this revelation are all the tools we need, to understand, to behave, to treat others with respect and kindness, to stand in awe of the creator and worship him. Thomas Paine did not appreciate anyone belittling God by suggesting he behaved as "revealed" in those old writings of men who did dastardly things and then justified their behaviors by claiming God told them to do it! Paine could see that the biblical God was created by men the same way they created all the other pagan gods of the day. (Christianity was not the first to have a virgin birth, resurrections and blood sacrifices.) With no written description of God, and only the creation to go on, Paine was in the uncommon position of actually having to think for himself about what God must be like, what he expects of us, how we should behave. Thinking is work, but like most work, it can be invigorating and rewarding--written descriptions are severely limiting, confined to the words used, while one's imagination is limitless. (Similarly, the more literally one takes something, the more limited its application.) Paine loved observing and imagining what God must be like; he wasn't limited to the feeble, misguided words of ancients. Those of us conditioned to getting our description of God through written material might at first think Paine to be at a great disadvantage. How silly, we are tempted to think, to imagine our understanding of God could be complete merely by looking around us. How could we possibly figure out that God wants us to have slaves, keep the Ten Commandments, offer sacrifices, flatter him more on Sunday (or is it Saturday?) and burn witches--all merely by observing nature? Then it dawns on us, and wow! If we believe God is good, then without these writings our imagination about his goodness is limitless. Throughout our lives, no matter how much we mature and grow in understanding, at any given moment we push the limits of God's goodness to the extremes of our imagination--never fully comprehending it, only approaching it. We are filled with awe and we are drawn to emulate that goodness. How silly all this stuff about a touchy biblical god who throws his weight around killing people at the drop of a pin if they don't offer the right sacrifice begins to look! Thus Thomas Paine was offended by the pettiness and absurdities of man-made religion. By observing God directly, he did not find himself in the awkward position of having to create excuses for God's supposed evil behaviors, his weird pagan-like fascination with blood sacrifices, his horrible temper or his morbid fascination with punishment--like stoning unruly kids to death, striking people dead for small infractions and imposing the death the penalty for every human being's mistakes, misdeeds or mere failures to flatter him (to say nothing of torturing them to death by endless fire). Paine wasn't saddled with the burden of explaining why the deity he worships doesn't want women in pulpits or gays in love. He's not stuck with having to defend fantastic promises that are (let's be honest) never kept, and prophecies never really fulfilled. Ironically, the only thing he ever had to defend was God's reputation--which Bible writers had dragged through the mud by attributing their own wicked pursuits to God. Paine's respect and adoration for God was pure, unadulterated by human contraption. In other words, he worshipped God without all the baggage. And all the while, Christians called him an atheist for not helping them carry theirs. It's worth noting that Thomas Paine's contemplation of God was not some kind of nebulous feel-good meditation. He was moved to action. In addition to defending God's reputation, Paine personally worked to end slavery, particularly with his 1775 essay, "African Slavery in America." That makes Paine a better person than the biblical God, and not by a little; I mean, God isn't even neutral on slavery, he encourages it (emphatically and repeatedly, according to the Bible). And, of course, while Paine worked to end slavery, his biggest obstacle was Christians who defended the practice on clear biblical grounds. They got their understanding of God through a written description, while Paine got an entirely different understanding of God merely by contemplating God's real revelation, the creation. Would Paine still believe in God today? Who knows? When he died, Charles Darwin was but a four-month-old baby. In that day, there simply was no plausible explanation for the origin of species.* Nearly everyone, including Paine, chalked it all up to God--the source of all things existing. Things of mystery have always been affairs of the gods. *(It is a common misconception among Christians that evolution attempts to explain the origin of life, but it does not.) But for the fact that Paine was not an atheist, one might consider The Age of Reason a foreshadowing of today's popular works by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and others. They and Paine all easily demonstrate how the writings that eventually got voted into the canon that is our present-day Bible could not possibly be a revelation from God. But unlike the others, Paine's purpose was to defend God, not doubt his existence. This book affords an additional plus. We get a fascinating glimpse of Paine's life and times in the 18th century, 200+ years ago. I was especially interested in his arrest over the nature of his writings. And while this review is an overview, Paine's meticulous tribute to "the age of reason" is a thing of real substance--you'll find detailed arguments not routinely employed by today's writers. You'll also get a more balanced view of deism than we usually get from Christians, who typically misrepresent it as a message of gloom and doom (God created us and then just "abandoned" us). The founding fathers of the United States were more deist than anything else, and thus not Christian, contrary to popular belief.